Dead I am the one, exterminating son! 
Slipping through the trees, strangling the breeze.
Dead I am the sky, watching angels cry.
While they slowly turn, conquering the worm...

Rob Zombie ~ Dragula

👹👹👹

"All right Irish, why don't you take a seat, and let's get started." Principal Gordon gestures to the open chair next to the little ball of hate.

"I prefer to stand, thank you very much." Irish makes her stand and assumes her opening war dance stance.

"Suit yourself, Irish." The Grey man sighs with an air of resignation at the coming storm. "So can I assume we are here to discuss the detention? The one that was issued to your grandson for disrupting the announcements this morning?"

"No Rupi, you can most certainly not assume that at all." Irish glares down at Or'sir. Who's finally shaken off the shock of seeing a demon from his childhood come to life right before his eyes. But luckily he's found some higher ground to dig in on ...namely his boss's ass.

"So let me guess?" Irish muses balefully, getting the ball rolling. "You didn't tell Rupi all of what you were up to this morning did you, Little Greg? Left out some of the relevant details, hoping I wouldn't call you out on your outrageous behavior in regards to those two, did we?"

"As I have already explained to Dr. Gordon, your grandson Darren, along with Miss Grimm continually chat amongst themselves during important announcements." Or'sir seeks refuge in the rules. "They have been warned against this disruptive behavior on more than one occasion. And for the record, this is not the first detention your grandson received for this offense. More like the tenth or eleventh detention for his continual disregard for other students." Like grandson, like grandmother, goes unsaid.

"So perhaps you can explain to your grandson, that from now on, any more of his outbursts and I will send him straight to the office for a suspension." Orsir smiles smugly secure in his bastion of rules. "Quite frankly, Dr. Gordon, I fail to see why I should be pulled into the office to placate one of your old acquaintances."

"Well, I'm sure you don't Little Greg. Do you think I'd waste my time to come all the way up here to be placated? Oh no, boyo ...I came for a war." Irish smiles savagely. "And lucky for you boys, I'm not the type to shy away from a nice fight."

"I see now where the grandson gets his ideas of entitlement." Or'sir counters quickly. "You think just because you grew up here, when the Three Valley's were nothing but family farms and orchards, that makes you special somehow? That the regular rules don't apply to you..."

"Oh, you so don't want to go down that road with me, Little Sheet." Irish smiles scything slices. "Cause I could explain to you until I'm blue in the face, what little respect I have for you and your kind, Sheethead. Or I can just show Gordon how seriously his trust in you has been misplaced."

Irish brandishes the angry orange detention and reads the final line.

"May Belle Grimm, inappropriate contact with another student...inappropriately kissing my grandson." Irish smiles coldly down at the old fear that has once more bloomed in Or'sirs midgity eyes.

"So inappropriate kissing?" Irish muses. "I have a thought, why don't we just call Patrice in here with us, seeing she wrote the rulebook. Then you tell us all about exactly what you found inappropriate? Because I would very much like to hear that, from your own mouth ...in front of witnesses."

"No, I rescinded that detention." Or'sir is immediately defensive. "The detention in question was for your grandson for his habitual disregard for..."

"But then you went and screwed up covering your ass ...when you snatched the wrong detention from the girl. Because this one here in my hand?" Irish taunts him with the angry orange slip. "This is the one that's going to land you and Rupi, and the school district right smack dab into federal court for discrimination."

"Discrimination and a Dhuyvetter ...our old friends together again."Irish seethes slowly for effect.

"Fine just give me the detention and I will rescind this one as well." Orsir snatches for the angry orange slip, but Irish is faster and smacks his hand down hard like an unruly child.

"You try to snatch anything out of my hand again? Like you did with May Belle Grimm this morning?" Irish seethes down at the shrinking man-boy. "And I'll beat your little hide so black and blue, you won't sit straight for a month of Sundays."

"In case it was lost on you, I'm not a little blind girl that you can push around and intimidate, you Little Sheethead." The Irish Antichrist looms larger than death herself. "I am Iris Irish Dean and I do not take any crap from a sheethead Dyuvetter ...ever!"

"Now Irish, you need to calm down." Dr. Gordon sighs. "You can't start threatening people with violence..."

"Why not Rupi?" Irish snaps back on the attack. "Because that is exactly what this little sheet did this very morning to May Belle? He threatened to slap at that little girl when she refused to play into his bullying tactics. Scared her so bad she nearly peed herself and stopped talking altogether. Didn't you, Little Sheet?"

"Is that true, Greg?" The Principal eyes his pending doom.

"I did no such thing." But the lie falls well short of the truth.

"Both my grandson and May Bell said you did. As do I." Irish intones her judgment coldly. "And even better ...I can prove it with your own words. Or did you suddenly forget that May Belle records all her classes?"

"So if you dare deny that to my face, in that condescending tone of voice? I will ask Pat to call her Edgar right down here." Irish muses thoughtfully over his death sentence. "So that poor little blind girl can press charges against you for assault and battery."

"Then when Chief St. Claire is finished interviewing every single student in that classroom this morning?" Irish muses meanly. "I think we all know exactly what they are going to say, don't we?"

"Because all your students have the utmost respect for you, right?" Irish snorts in disdain. "And none of their parents and grandparents would ever encourage these kids to go ahead and bury the old hatchet in your family's coffin? Oh, and let's not forget that Chief St. Claire has no love whatsoever for your daddy's namesakes."

"One of the lessons you should have picked up as a child Little Greg. No one hates like a small town hates...and for a lot longer than just a generation or two." Irish eyes burn brightly in all her righteous rage. "And your foul father and granddaddy made a ton more enemies around here than friends. Which is gonna come back home to roost right on your head."

"Before you dare take that condescending tone of voice with me again, the only reason I haven't fed you to the wolves yet? Is because your mother, me, Patty, and Rupi go all the way back to grade school together. And if your sainted mother was still alive...she'd be standing right next to me boxing your ears in good to take responsibility like a man."

"This is starting to feel serious, Irish. Are you saying, that I need to call the school districts legal counsel to sit in for our meeting as well?" Principle Gordon hedges.

"Only if you intended to play cover your ass with me, Rupi." Irish smiles cruelly. "Cause then I am going to have to call Big Tim Grimm, and tell him to come down here with his army of expensive lawyers. Then Timmy's lawyers can explain to everyone, why you should be settling out of court with him. And for a lot more than a pretty penny, and a useless apology from a sheethead."

"Then place an advert for a new English teacher ...and maybe even a principal." Irish knifes her sever eyebrow up. "Or we can settle things the old way and just have it ...your call?"

"Suit yourself, Irish ..as you usually do." Principal Gordon sighs resigned and just leans back to let the old war take its course.

"So a detention for an innocent little kiss?" Irish goes right back on the warpath. "You must think we're all pretty stupid around here compared to you, Little Sheet. Pretty stupid indeed..." Irish hips up on the corner of the desk and stares down into him, as looming is a long-standing Dean family tradition. "Because I know as well as you, this wasn't about any class disturbance nonsense."

"No, this was all about you being uncomfortable with May Belle Grimm acting a little too"normal" for your taste. So you were going to put a stop to her being just like every other kid in this school." Irish shakes her head slowly. "Like all the other kids I just saw necking out in the hallway not two minutes ago. Where Pat and I both watched you on your way in here. Right past two different couples sticking their tongues down each other's throats like it was Mardi Gras. But not even a blink from you as you strutted right past them ...let alone mention of a detention."

"And don't you dare try to deny that either. Cause Patrice was the one who took note of your lack of equal vigor as to an inappropriate standard for everyone." Irish eyes the shrinking little thing in front of her.

"Then to make matters even worse, that little girl stuck up for herself and challenged you. Made you look small and weak, and you just couldn't have that. You couldn't let yourself look that bad." Irish looms down at him. "So you ran your mouth just the way your daddy used to try. Saying sorry's that aren't really sorry, and misunderstanding because folks took offense to his racist nonsense. Just like your daddy used to do ...till he got the spit beat out of him when we were kids."

"Your mother always complained that you were a frightened little boy. I can see that you're still a scared little man. So you tried to cover it up by bullying a blind girl!?!" Irish seethes in righteous indignation. "So is that who you finally turned into, Little Greg? A tiny little petty pissant tyrant, thinking that he can lord over a little blind girl? That make you finally feel big and powerful, you little sheethead?"

In a flash Irish slaps her hands together in front of Or'sir's face, making him shrink back. That old muscle memory is a real bitch when you're a coward.

"Oh, I'm sorry did that scare you, Little Sheet?" Irish laughs at his curling ways. "How does it feel to be scared of the sharp smack in the dark? Now try to imagine you're blind, as well as a coward?"

"So here's a news flash for ya to chew on, boy. That little girl out there can't open her eyes like you can, you arrogant little sheet. So you smacked your hands right next to her ears like a slap? To terrorizing a little blind girl at school for a silly little innocent kiss? For shame..." Irish clucks her tongue like a hungry pit viper. "You got dogdamn lucky this morning with that little slap stunt you pulled with the girl. Because I know for a fact, that the only thing kept my grandson from handing you your head this morning, was that little girl's well being."

"It certainly wasn't the illusion that you have authority over him." She snorts and shakes her head. "No, it was only the grace of God and that scared little girl sitting next to him holding on to his hand that saved you from the beating of a lifetime. And trust me ...she is the only reason you're not in the hospital broken into tinnie tiny little pieces of who you used to be. Which is why I am here, instead of at the police station picking him up."

"Because as far as any of us can tell, the only thing that he cares more about at the moment more than beating the tarnation out of you ...is that little girl out there." Irish stabs home her point. "Which may be the only thing standing between you and your rightly deserved comeuppance, Little Sheet. Because between you and me...we all know that there is a lot of folks in this town that will gladly turn a blind eye if another sheethead gets his comeuppance, at the hands of one of mine. Now don't we?"

"Now that I think about it, I just might encourage the boy to take whatever measures he wants to address your behavior... outside of school. Man to man, and let the chips fall where they fall. Like we settled things in the Valleys the old days." Irish muses slyly. "And I guarantee you that boy out there staring daggers into your heart. He will tear you apart at the bones, boyo."

"Now Irish..." Rupert weighs in a warning that is ignored, yet again.

"Because in case you haven't figured it out yet, you've never seen anything like my grandson before." Irish begins to recite the litany of things that she has taken issue with. "Cause he's bigger than you, meaner than you, and much, much tougher than you have ever dreamed of being. Oh, and he's been trained by a couple of ex-Navy seals and giant longshoremen to fight dirty ...Lord knows why, but he is."

"Oh, and he's been stung so many times by jellyfish, that apparently he doesn't feel pain in the same way, you or I would any longer. He has what you call...an extremely high pain threshold?" Irish starts to chortle malevolently. "Now if I remember correctly when you were a boy you fainted at the sight of other people's blood ...let alone your own?"

"But my grandson?" Irish snorts. "If he gets cut by accident like he did this summer by the lawn mower edger thing? He stitches himself up with fishing line and a fish hook in the garage. Rather than going to the hospital, because he doesn't like the way hospitals "smell". Probably has something to do with the last time he was in a hospital, to identify my son's body in the morgue." Irish gives a nod up to her personal angel of death. "Which according to my daughter Mica, he didn't shed a single tear ...he just did what he had to do."

"So as my daddy would say... 'I am pretty sure that you not only outclassed but outmatched and fighting out of your weight class. All the way down the line boyo'."  She eyes Rupert's clear concern regarding the strange skill set she just named off. 

"Now regardless my idiot grandson is not a half bad kid, if left alone to his own? But he's exactly the kid you do not ever push over the line or else." Irish eyes narrow into her normal calculating slits of hate. "And you crossed the line when you slapped at that the little girl today, didn't you, Little Greg? And just like your racist daddy, you panicked and tried to backpedaled when you sensed what you had stepped into."

The silence stretches out as Irish eyes are smiling savagely with now malevolence. Just waiting for the sheet to fall into the trap she's laid out. But Or'sir finally decides retreat is the better part of valor and offers up his half-truths.

"I did not 'slap at' Miss Grimm. I merely slapped my hands in an attempt to get her undivided attention. It was your grandson took offense and loomed, threatening me."

"Threatened? Loomed?" Dr. Gordon interjects suspiciously.

"He loomed in a threatening manner ...and growled something unintelligible." Or'sir shrugs. "That's the best way I can describe his actions."

"Well, unlike your father, you're at least man enough not to try to lie and try make that part sound any worse than it was." Irish contritely concedes her victory. "So now that we all understand each other, let's just cut to the chase and go ahead then and address the ultimatum."

"Now the way I see things, you boys have three choices from here on in." Irish starts counting off her victories. "We can let Darren serve both their detentions as his own?"

"Shoot a sheet, you can even throw in a couple more for good measure for "looming" or whatnot. You get to keep a minor victory for what little dignity you have. Hell, I'll even let you walk out of here and huff and puff, so you can keep whatever little respect you have left in my town. Maybe Pat can even figure out how to segregate them out from the homeroom class, so that you won't have to bear the sight of them every day."

"But after that, you will go your way and we will go ours, and our paths will not ever cross again. But from here on out, you will never ever even come close to crossing the line with these two again. In fact, I think it's best from now on that you don't even acknowledge them anymore at all, Little Greg. Or so help me God, Aces will have your head for a Christmas ornament when he finds out a Dhuyvetter crossed that line with a Dean." Irish smiles at the happy thoughts of her Christmas present.

"So from now on, if they're talking during class? That means that he is explaining something to her that you shouldn't bother to concern yourself with. After all, he is May Belle's official sighted companion assistant here at school. Which Patrice made that determination the second week of school." Irish chuckles and reminds herself to thank the Sleestak Queen again for her foresight in assigning her wayward grandson something useful to do with his free time. "Ah, I see you are equally ignorant of that fact as well. Sobeit."

"Or you can always keep challenging me to your right to be a racist little sheethead?" Irish smiles hopefully this will turn out to be true. "After which I will have to reach out and start making calls to all my old friends up and down the Three Valleys? Tell them all about what a stellar little man you've grown up to be?" 

"My friends who attend your church, all my friends that sit on the school board, the Lions Club, the Rotary club. All the old gang, every last one of them who used to know your mother, and are still close with your Aunt Ida and Lois in Portland. Then I start calling everyone I know in this valley who owes me a favor. Every wife of every Vet from the VFW, starting with Edgar St. Claire. And I will flay you alive for what you've done to that little girl."

"You may have forgotten this fact? But make no mistake, I am a very vindictive woman when you mess with my family. Which just in case that went over your tiny little head, now includes May Belle as well." Irish starts drawing her next battle lines. "So you want to mess with me and mine? I will mess with you and yours right back."

"I swear on a stack, I will not rest until you've learned what we taught your daddy and granddaddy both back in the day. This valley was done with your kind of sheet generations ago, when we drove you out the first time. I won't see that kind of hate return in my lifetime. Oh no boyo, not on my watch...and not without a war."

"Which brings us to choice three...The War. What you'll really want on your watch, Rupi?" Irish smirks. "So we just go ahead and do this all official. You call the Grimm's down here, for a full parent-teacher conference. Then make your case to them that the innocent little kiss between those two is not "normal" by your standards. And you can explain to Big Tim and Monet all about how you think their special little girl and a regular boy should never be allowed to be affectionate in front of the other kids...let alone be friends."

"I will of course object, and take we can all take this show right to the next school board session in two weeks. Then we will all get a chance to do this song and dance in front of the entire Three Valley's. Where folks around here have a long memory attached to your people. Make your stand in the sand as it was...just like your daddy did on integration. And just look how that worked out for him?" Irish snorts malevolently. "And by the time I am done with you...if Big Tim Grimm's lawyers don't hand you your ass? Hells Bells, you'll be lucky to be alive to see the sunrise."

"Alright Irish, I think that's enough, you've made your point." Principal Gordon intones gravely.

"Rupi, you can "Alright Irish" me all you want? But you know damn well I'm not playing around with you boys when it comes to another civil rights fight. While I don't want to do all that to you because we are old friends, Rupi. But so long as this anchor is tied around your neck? I'll have no choice but to see to it that he'll drag your good name right down into the racist cesspool that spawned this Little Sheet Head."

"Can I just say something here?" Or'sir attempts to escape his hated fate. "None of this would have happened if your grandson's and May Grimm's attitudes were not so insolent..."

"Good, you should tell your lawyers just like that. Give them something to work with when Tim Grimm takes you to federal court for violating his daughter's Equal Protection rights." The Irish Antichrist starts to chortle malevolently. "The little blind girl 'was insolent' in defending herself against the racist? Oh, I'm sure that will work well in a liberal state, that keeps trying to cede from the union change its name to Jeffersonia, because it wants to be even more libertarian?"

"So what you need to figure out now, Rupi. Is if your defense is just that mean little ball of ignorant hatefulness? Or a full on racist sheethead just like its father was against the minorities and integration?" The Irish Antichrist snaps and snarls out the old hatreds. 

"Now you have my demands, and you have 'till 4 O'Clock today to concede defeat. Because at four-oh-one, I pick up my phone and start pulling my vines. Then good God help you both then." Irish drops off her roost and abruptly walks out of the office ending the parlay on her terms, with one last parting shot on the way out. 

"Now you boys have some deciding to do by the end of school today. Rupi I don't hear from you by the time August gets back from the VFW looking for dinner? I am going to just go ahead and assume it's time to call Tim Grimm and let him in on the fun too. Shoot a sheet, who knows? Maybe I'll just by-pass ol Big Tim and get some good legal advice from the folks over at the ACLU? I bet they can't wait to string up another Sheethead ...just for old times sake."

***Backside Note ***

So scary fact about the picture up top of this chapter. If you Google it ...it comes back as Donald Trump. Holy Sheet!!! 🤯🤯🤯